Extracorporeal blood treatment means taking the blood from a patient, treating the blood outside the patient, and returning the treated blood to the patient. Extracorporeal blood treatment is typically used to extract undesirable matter or molecules from the patient's blood, and/or to add beneficial matter or molecules to the blood. Extracorporeal blood treatment is used with patients incapable of effectively eliminating matter from their blood, for example, in the case of a patient who is suffering from temporary or permanent kidney failure. These and other patients may undergo extracorporeal blood treatment to add to or to eliminate matter from their blood, to maintain an acid-base balance or to eliminate excess body fluids, for instance.
In a variety of extracorporeal blood treatments, one or more liquids may be supplied to the extracorporeal blood treatment apparatus for use during the treatments and one or more liquids may be collected as a part of the treatments. Both the supplied and collected liquids may be stored in one or more reservoirs. Those reservoirs may, during the course of treatment of a single patient, need to be replaced as they are either emptied (in the case of liquids supplied as a part of the treatment) or are filled to capacity (in the case of liquids collected as a part of the treatment).
Although many extracorporeal blood treatment apparatus include displays used to monitor the operation of the apparatus as well as the status of any reservoirs attached to the apparatus, those displays are typically physically remote from the reservoirs themselves. For example, in many extracorporeal blood treatment apparatus the reservoirs are provided in the form of bags that hang from the bottom of a housing containing the extracorporeal blood treatment apparatus, while displays are typically located higher on the machine so that they are closer to eye level for the user.